New Beginnings looking for donations of materials, services

PAUL SQUIRE PHOTO | New Beginnings Brendan House on Sound Avenue in Riverhead.

New Beginnings is seeking donations of materials and services for Brendan House, a long-term independent group home for residents with traumatic brain injuries that is slated to open on Sound Avenue in Riverhead.

Contact Allyson or Kate at New Beginnings, (631) 286-6166, if you’d like to help.

The community residence, planned for a vacant Sound Avenue farmhouse, would house four people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries and may be considered medically dependent, thus in need of around-the-clock care.

Each resident would have an aide, but the aides would work shifts and would not live in the residence themselves.

Under the plan, a barn building that is already on the property would be converted into an apartment for use by the “house master,” who would oversee the facility and serve as backup for any aides who cannot make their shift, the group said.

Michael Hubbard, a Riverhead teen who suffered brain damage in the aftermath of being badly burned by an exploding gel candle in his backyard in May of 2011 is expected to be one of the residents of Brendan House.

The home, which officials hope to have open in the fall, received ZBA approval in April. It is named in memory of Brendan Aykroyd, a 25-year-old Blue Point man who suffered a brain injury in a 2009 assault.